Damion Schubert interview pt. 2
Another element you seemed to feel strongly about in your talk was guild tools. We're talking about designers who play their own games, have a feel for their own spaces. Why are these designers, who are playing their own games, not turning around and creating the kind of guild tools that we feel should be available? More and more they seem critical, why aren't they being addressed?
Damion: Because they're hard.
The number one guild-killer is drama. At the end of the day it's not raid slots, it's not even loot distribution. Most guilds have a system, they use it. Most players suck it up and live with it or they move on to another guild. Most of the time it's two guys crushing on the same girl, or a guy deciding that he's sick of the guild master and undercutting him, or a guy getting drunk and launching profanities in the guild chat channel ... these are problems that can be addressed by tools, but what makes the guildmaster's life hard right now is the drama. If we can find a way to reduce drama, to help police the drama, to know what's going on inside the guild it will become much easier for guild leaders to keep their guilds together.
Giving guild masters more tools is probably something we to look at anyway: integrated DKP, more guildbank type stuff, integrated guild calendars, stuff that can take the planning stages to the next level.
To talk about your experience as a player for a moment, do you ever like to take on these more formal roles? Do you ever do any raid leading, or have you ever been a guild officer?
Damion: I tend to be the good cop cheerleader. I also tend to gravitate towards wacky roles in my class choices – things you need one of in the guild but wouldn't even want two per se. I'm playing a Shadow-specced Priest right now.
What about the current state of the endgame do you think needs to change? What is there in endgame experiences right now that needs to be addressed, that we might see happen in future titles?
Damion: Well, that's our secret sauce isn't it?
That's a good question ... what can I say? I would say that one thing is that a lot of people are intrigued by the raid game found in EverQuest, found in World of Warcraft, found in Dark Age of Camelot. What scares them off isn't having to fight with other people or having to learn how to do elaborate fights, they actually like that big idea. What they worry about is the structure, the only way you can actually conquer the big dungeons is to show up on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at specific times.
That's the scary part. I think that if somebody could find a way to create a good 25-man PvE experience that could be done ad-hoc, that could be less about "We need these people here at this time" and more about "Hey, show up if you can and we'll try to get this done." I think that's something that players would find a lot less scary. Some way to make it feel less like a firm commitment. I think there's a real appetite for these big, many-person activities with less structure. I think players would find they'd want to gravitate to that.
How we're going to get there from here, I'm not sure of. That's definitely what I'd be looking into if I was working on that kind of content.
We really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us. Thank you, sir.
